Questions about Zarqawi death...

There has been an interesting development in the last 48 hours surrounding Strike Team Freedom's overwhelming victory over the forces of evil.

Last week, when we bombed the secret lair of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, and blowed up the Al Qaeda leader, trotting his death photo out around the country so the rubes could have some evidence that it really happened, a couple of interesting things took place almost immediately.

1. Maximum Leader downplayed the significance in his official statement on the event.

2. Even though Iraqi forces were in on the caper, they were utterly silent about their role until later, letting the U.S. capture the glory.

Then all of a sudden, at the height of East Blogistan's grade school taunting of the left about the death of our "hero" (they really are simple creatures) there is a spate of reports about how a. Zarqawi survived the initial bombing and was found alive, and b. Military medical examiners were absolutely sure that it was al-Zarqawi that was killed, and that his death was the result of injuries sustained in the bombings.

Up to that moment, that was the first I had heard that there had been any question as to the identity or cause of death. Now the first one seemed a no-brainer. If the dude survived, they'd be propping him up in a hospital bed if they had to to get that video out on Al-Jazeera. And apparently, they have already named a successor to replace him.

But, why the sudden panic about the cause of death? Could the White House's downplaying of the event and the Iraqi military's silence have been indicative of something else? Perhaps Zarqawi didn't die as a result of bomb secured enkillment?

Perhaps the troops that found him on the ground just toadcranked him instead of taking him prisoner...

Now I will say that I probably believe that he died of injuries sustained in the bombing in the absense of any other convincing evidence. However, I will say that I believe that both the White House and the Iraqi government believed it was possible that he was summarily executed or tortured to death in the field by troops, hence the need for a spedy autopsy and quick press conference to squelch any rumors to the contrary.

It would seem to make sense in the context of various stories coming out of both the U.S. and Iraq about who, exactly had custody, with Iraqi and Asian media saying we had him and our media reports from the U.S. military trumpeting the brave Iraqi soldiers who went in to take custody of him. No one wanted to take the rap?

But on a deeper level, let's ask the bigger question. Why would the U.S. and the Iraqi government have to be worried about their troops level of brutality in the field? No one is saying they did, I am only saying that it would appear that the respective governments are certainly acting like its within the realm of possibility...

mojo sends